Hi, I have been lurking on this site for a few weeks and I wish I would have found it years ago! I have finally pulled my head out of the sand and have started to make some plans to undue damage both my husband and I made years ago in college. My question is as follows: A few months ago my husband made a "deal" with NCO to pay off an old MBNA debt from over 9 years ago. The rep cornered him and scared him into setting up an automatic withdrawal with phrases like "lawsuit, garnishment, lien, including your wife" etc. He was so scared, he agreed that he owed $2,600. They are automatically withdrawing $200/mo and the debt is not decreasing on any of our reports. Now reading on these boards, I am not scared, but angry that this happened. I am fine paying the original creditor, but how can I go about getting NCO off our backs? Thank you for any help!
Since they have your husbands authorization, you have to work carefully, and quickly... (And on a whole lot of fronts.) 1. Send a letter CMRRR to NCO telling them that you are canceling their authorization for debiting your account, effective immediately. Your husband "only made the agreement to pay this alleged debt to end their relentless harrassment, and false threats of litigation, and judgement, on a debt which they knew or should have known was invalid." (Check to see what your states SOL is.) *** If the account was closed over 7 years ago, IT CAN NOT REPORT! END OF STORY! *** http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/05/ncogroup.htm NCO was fined $1.5 MILLION DOLLARS by the FTC for re-aging accounts such as this one. If the account was closed more than 7 years ago, and they are still reporting it, then they are in violation of their settlement with the FTC, the settlement requires that they investigate any disputes of re-aging. *** If the account was closed over 7 years ago, IT CAN NOT REPORT! END OF STORY! *** You want to notify them that they are illegally reporting an account which is obsolete, with incorrect information, in violation of the Fair Debts Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and their company's settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Add "CC: Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580" to the bottom of the dispute, and send the dispute to them, with a copy to the FTC at the above address. 2. Typically, FTC complaints go to dev/null (a quick notation is made, then the complaint is archived, unless a large number of complaints are received against the company), but when the company already is under a settlement, and they are being monitored for compliance, things change dramatically. NCO is required to report *ALL* disputes which are covered under the settlement to the FTC, you are ensuring that if NCO decides to not report your dispute, that the FTC knows that they are not abiding by their monitoring agreement, and they are failing to correct their illegal re-aging of accounts. 3. Dispute their trade lines with any CRA which they are reporting to, with "Invalid account dates, company is illegally reporting an incorrect date of delinquency, to illegal re-age this account in violation of their settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.", and include a copy of the FTC complaint & consent decree with the disputes.
Since they are automatically debiting your bank account, they have all your information. The bank can "stop" the debit for the amount they are withdrawing, but all NCO needs to do is change the $$ by just a penny, and it will go through. My strong suggestion is to open another bank account, preferably at another bank all together, and move everything to that new account. I realize this is a drastic move but it's the only way to ensure NCO doesn't take everything out of your account.
